Masturbation Month in review: Sex & Relationships headlines from the month of May 2010

Since May was the 16th annual celebration of Masturbation Month – founded in 1995 after Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was run out of Washington for daring to suggest that discussion of masturbation might have a place in sex education curriculum – here's some self-love for some of my biggest Sex & Relationships stories this month:

Jiggling joysticks! British lingerie brand Bedtime Flirt introduced a real-life bra set, corset getup, and babydoll bundle based on the risqué virtual outfits of video game babes from No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, hot enough that you might be able to peel your partner's eyes away from the screen and ease the controller from their grip for the rest of the night.

Who do Esquire masturbators readers love? We'll have to wait a few more weeks to find out who Esquire.com deems to be the Sexiest Woman Alive in an online poll based on the NCAA March Madness brackets, but Heidi Klum, Jessica Alba, Brooklyn Decker, and Stacy Keibler are in the Final 4. My money's on Klum, but I'm not sure most Esquire readers share my Project Runway fantasies. In the meantime... Playboy's readers went with Hope Dworaczyk for 51st annual Playmate of the Year.

Ladies first: While we wait for the gents at Esquire to decide who's sexiest, soak up the results of AfterEllen.com's Hot 100 list of the ladies lesbian and bisexual women love – Olivia Wilde tops this year's list (she plays the bisexual character Dr. Remy Hadley on the Fox series House), in a Top 10 that also includes Kristen Stewart, Lily Loveless, Sara Ramirez, Kathryn Prescott, Jennifer Beals, Jessica Capshaw, Lena Headley, and Katherine Moennig.

The F Word: Feminists hate pornography. No wait, feminists love pornography. Either way, the Stop Porn Culture conference next week (June 12-13) at Wheelock College in Boston has some women dropping the F-bomb. For the record: I'm a feminist and I watch porn, lest there be any confusion about that. Also: Porn is the new fat.

Fapping for fanboys (and girls): Speaking of porn, you just would not believe how many people have clicked through my articles about Batman XXX: A Porn Parody, from director Axel Braun and Vivid Entertainment's new Vivid Superhero imprint, to see XRCO Female Performer of the Year Tori Black suited up as Catwoman. Next up? Watch for Braun to flex his muscle with parodies of Superman, The Green Hornet, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Thor, and The Incredible Hulk. No, seriously! Hulk smash!

Bent over the bench: What Would a Judge Do? This month in San Francisco U.S. District Court judge Maxine M. Chesney passed judgment against MonsterCock.com to the tune of $1.35 million in – ahem – an intellectual property suit involving gay porn studio Titan Media as the plaintiff. Senior United States District Judge Jack B. Weinstein ruled in favor of an 8th grade teacher who encouraged her students to use juvenile slang in a discussion of sexual health and HIV prevention, after hearing testimony in his courtroom about classroom use of terms like "furburgers," "schmeckles," and "hiding the pickle".  Meanwhile, a poop-porn case currently stalled in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals could be headed for the Supreme Court to broaden the definition of the word "mistrial" after Judge Alex Kozinski turned out to be something of a pornographer himself. Welcome aboard, Elena Kagan!

Deep Throat (as if Lindsay Lohan needed any help making headlines): Here's a sneak peek at the first posters from Matthew Wilder's Inferno, with Lohan starring as Deep Throat herself in a biopic about Linda Lovelace.

And now for something anal: The mainstream media picked up this month's opportunity to run anal sex headlines and ran with it after a study presented at the 2010 Microbicides conference in Pittsburgh found that most over-the-counter lubricants (Astroglide, Elbow Grease, ID Glide, KY Jelly) contribute to cell death in rectal and cervical tissue and bacteria and increase HIV transmission risk. But to hear most media outlets tell it, the study concluded that sexual lubricant is risky in and of itself. Far riskier, I assure you: Anal sex without lube. Try an isomolar brand like PRÉ, the product that fared best in the Microbicides study. And, obvs, if you're having anal sex with anyone other than a monogamous partner whose STI test results you are intimately familiar with, make sure you have some condoms!

Does the Pope wear a funny hat? Pope Benedict doesn't endorse condom usage – for anal sex or otherwise – but that didn't stop Dutch sex shop De Condoomfabriek (The Condom Factory) from putting out some papal protection in the name of protest. Here in the U.S., a new national survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 99 percent of sexually active Americans have used some form of contraceptive, nearly universally ignoring the teachings of the Catholic church and other religious groups on the matter. Take that, Pope!

Which hand do you hold the book with? Check out the Erotica, Sexuality/Relationships, and Gay & Lesbian winners from the 2010 Independent Publisher IPPY Awards, including a couple of my personal favorites.

Sorry, Sarah Palin: Since May was also National Prevent Teen Pregnancy Month, how about that 36.9 percent drop in Canada's teen pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates from 1996-2006, corresponding roughly to implementation of national comprehensive sex education programs? Or the even more encouraging 52 percent teen pregnancy decline in California, the only state that never applied for or accepted federal funding for abstinence-only sex education under Title V of the Social Security Act? I don't have the numbers from Alaska in front of me, but I do know of at least one teen parent there who grew up hearing an abstinence-only message and learned the hard way. It turns out that teenagers are going to have sex regardless of what message they hear about it, and that they're safer about it when they have access to good information about being safer about it. Who knew?

The sex education textbook the Christian right doesn't want you to have: Back to Dr. Jocelyn Elders for a moment, in honor of Masturbation Month: Check out Elders' blurb for Sex – A Book For Teens: An Uncensored Guide to Your Body, Sex, and Safety by Nikol Hasler, host of the Midwest Teen Sex Show.

Please enjoy the last precious hours of National Masturbation Month, and stay tuned: As President Obama pointed out on Friday, June is National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trasngender Pride Month!

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